


Forest Fires

by TidbitsAndThoughts



Series: Song Fic Stories [8]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Teen to be safe, moon boy has had a hard time, not really graphic but like i wanted to be safe, pls pls pls tell me if i need to tag more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26253616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TidbitsAndThoughts/pseuds/TidbitsAndThoughts
Summary: A soul fragment caught in the moon watches and listens. What has he been doing all this time? Wishing to be seen. What does he do when someone sees him for the first time? The answer may surprise you!This one is based on the song Forest Fires by Lauren Aquilina! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N4cYArsFqY Please enjoy!
Series: Song Fic Stories [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884079
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	Forest Fires

An hourglass shattered by ice cut through scarlet veins. Or was it scarlet threads? He flexed his blue fingers, frostbitten, and the magic thread that kept him tethered to the moon jumped into his palm. It laced around his fingers, dancing lightly with an unknown pulse. His? That couldn’t be. He had died, long ago.

From the moon he could see the forest. When he first woke up in his prison, red yarn tying back his wrists that already held crackling chains and his throat already choked by thick lumps, he saw the shadow prince hiking through ice and snow.

The shadow prince was in every way like the imprisoned prince in personality and past except he was free and the imprisoned prince was not. The imprisoned prince watched the shadow prince grow in strength when the ice queen did not visit the prison. The shadow prince felt he had been truly alone, but the imprisoned prince watched and listened.

He, too, ached for his daughter and for the forest. While he couldn’t do anything in all his time in his prison, the shadow prince fought for the frozen souls. The imprisoned prince loved him for it, even if the occasional method to protect the subjects of subcon were deplorable.

He really couldn’t get behind the soul eating but then again, the imprisoned prince couldn’t exactly change the situation.

Just another disappointment on his part.

So, he watched when cold claws were not crawling up his blue cheeks. He watched the warmth spread through the forest while he shivered in a space he was unsure truly existed at times. He listened to the shadow prince singing broken lullabies while sewing plushies. He listened, unable to sing along.

He listened and no one minded that he didn’t make a sound.

The shadow prince hated himself. Hated him. This became clear when the shadow prince burned a section of the forest in despair. Fire licked trees and flowers burned as cinders caught on their petals. The shadow prince grew into a large ghost that trembled with power and anguish. His flames ached and his smoke suffocated as he tried to snuff out all the weakness that remained. The shadow prince wanted to only be shadow.

And the imprisoned prince did not blame him. But the shadow was hurting as he burned himself with his flames. He was falling apart at the seams. He had tried to burn out the part of his soul that was human, that kept him together. So, the imprisoned prince sent him a thread.

Though from the same spool that trapped him, this thread was sent to only tether the shadow prince back together. Somehow, it worked. The imprisoned prince found he could send small threads to the forest and used them to support the other fragment of his soul. That was enough.

Yes, it was enough, the imprisoned prince thought to himself when the ice queen entered the prison, her black shadow wavering with each step. Her eyes flashed as red as the string that tightened around his wrists and throat, clamping him against a cold, slick wall. As thread pressed into his cold skin, he tried to breathe calmly.

He said nothing as the shadow that once married him traced one of her clawed nails against his jawline.

“You must never leave, my prince,” she whispered, her breath cold. He tried to subdue the shiver, but she noticed his revulsion. A claw scraped into his cheek. Something wet slid down but he wasn’t sure if it was blood or a tear.

“No one but me could ever love you,” she hissed, a vague outline of her sharpened teeth inched closer. “And you still make it hard to care about you.”

The imprisoned prince stared blankly into her red eyes, steadying the drum in his chest.

“Unfaithful, despicable man.” She pressed a finger over his heart, jabbing a familiar bruise. “Perhaps I need to leave you here, longer. You just need more time to learn to love me.”

His head slumped when she walked away. This time he knew it was a tear that slipped down his cheek, because he felt the burn in his red-rimmed eyes.

Her shadow left and he could view the forest again from his prison crested with light blue frost and red strings. He wanted. He found he wanted to be in the forest and feel the grass. He wanted to greet one of the children the shadow prince had saved. He wanted!

The red threads loosened in response.

Hope surged in his chest as he pulled his hands from the wall. The thread kept him tethered but let him move. Floating forward, the tattered tunic that hung from his body trailed through the air. He came up to a glass that held him back. His reflection momentarily startled him, and he quickly looked away.

Swallowing thickly, he placed a hand on the glass. The chains clunked against the wall and the scarlet thread tangled with the links. Surely, he could leave for a moment? Surely, he could do that much?

The threads seemed to give the okay because before he knew it, he jumped from the moon.

He landed by the frozen hourglass, with his strings reaching up to the moon, still connecting him to his prison. The scent of the forest he loved had changed. The once fresh dew was now muddied with mist and the flowers almost seemed toxic. But he was thrilled! A lump in his chest felt like it would explode so he gave a small twirl, holding his arms in the air. The string entangled around him, so he spun the other way and inhaled his forest.

Home! Home! Oh! He wanted to sing! He wondered if—! Yes! He could see it! His cello! He flew over to the ruins of his old home, spotting the pile of thread the shadow prince had been using to make the dolls for the subconites with fondness. He floated over to the cello and plucked a string. The string, frozen, snapped with a untuned _thwunk_. His shoulder’s slumped in dismay, surprised Vanessa’s ice had attacked even his favorite instrument.

“Did you hear that?” A high-pitched voice came from deeper into the forest.

“Do you think it’s the boss?” Another responded.

The tethered prince brightened, eager to be with another soul who didn’t want him in chains. But a hand went to his face. He didn’t want anyone to see his features! He dropped his hand and glanced around the ruins. He remembered his old mask. Would the shadow prince mind if he pilfered it? He could hear the dolls get closer and he decided he would work it out with the other part of his soul if he had to.

Relishing the familiarity of home, he found the old trunk stuffed with music and other mementos. He instinctively summoned a red thread to unlock the trunk and he quickly found the pale blue mask that curled like the crescent moon. The eye sockets of the mask were patterned with a see-through fabric and red lines trailed from the eyes like tears. He placed it over his face and tied the red ribbon on the mask around the back of his head, accidentally trapping a lock of his dark blue hair in the rushed bow. But he didn’t care! Immediately, he felt more relaxed.

“Oh no,” one of the dolls muttered from behind.

The tethered prince turned around, waving, but the lights in the dolls’ hoods were looking towards the cello.

“The string broke,” the first dweller said.

“The boss never plays it anyway,” the second responded.

The tethered prince floated in front of the cello, waving his hand in front of the dolls. They did not see him.

No. The tethered prince felt his chest constrict painfully. No, _no_ , please. _Please._ They had to _see him._

“Maybe this means the ice is thawing?” The first shrugged.

Desperate, the tethered prince floated back to the cello and plucked another string, causing it to shatter before the dolls.

“Ahh!” They hugged each other, screaming.

“The forest is haunted!” The first yelped.

“What are you talking about?” The second pulled back, their hood dipping in a glare. “It was already haunted. We’re ghosts!”

“Yeah but now it’s _extra_ haunted!” The first whined.

_Please._ The tethered prince tried one more time. Another string broke and clattered against the floor. The two dolls screamed in terror and bolted back the way they came, leaving the wounded spirit hovering alone.

He looked down at his hands. Chains and red threads hung limply. Someone had to be able to see him, right? Vanessa saw him every time she visited. Or could he only be seen in his prison? No. No, he could not give up yet. There was still his other self. The shadow prince may not want to see him, but the tethered prince just wanted to be with someone.

The tethered prince flew, weaving between the trees and finding the old oak tree in the center. He could see the soul snatcher inside, reading a book in the lone chair he had dragged into the hollow of the tree. The tethered prince hoped the soul snatcher would add to the home, for it looked rather bare at the moment.

The tethered prince floated into the tree, waving his hand with slight hesitation. Snatcher did not look up from the book. The tethered prince edged closer and stuck a hand between the specter and the page he was reading.

No reaction.

The tethered prince backed up until he felt himself press against the wall of the tree. _No_. No one could see him. But he supposed they could see his influence. While it pained him to break the cello strings he had once cared for like any musician, the dwellers had seen that. While he sent red threads when Snatcher needed them, he could tell the ghost and his subjects could see them because the dwellers had started looking for the red thread whenever their boss was hurting.

Was that really all he could do? He supposed it was for the best. Who would want to be around him anyway? Maybe Vanessa had been right.

The thread around his throat tightened and he lurched. Was his time up? He floated out of the tree and glanced up at the moon. There was another tug and he frowned beneath his mask. In a swift motion, he jumped back to the moon.

Back in his prison, the prince felt an immediate pull against the glass wall the red strings were connected to. The threads thrust him back into position and he slouched against the wall. Thankfully, Vanessa was nowhere to be seen. He leaned his head back against the wall, tears burning and slipping out from beneath his mask.

He deserved this, he decided.

The imprisoned prince cried silently, with shoulders trembling against the glass walls of the moon.

That was his existence. Watch the forest. Suffer through Vanessa’s visits but also hang onto them because in some cruel twist of fate she was the only one who talked to him. Send threads when Snatcher needed them. Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

He did leave once in a while. If he knew Vanessa wouldn’t visit for some time, he would return to the forest and breathe the night air and pick up one of the plush cows Snatcher slowly stopped making, adding to his small collection of items in his moon prison he hid with his mask when Vanessa came. He would search for instruments to play or float absentmindedly. He listened to the dwellers praise their boss when he wasn’t around or read over Snatcher’s shoulder when the book was about law or an old favorite novel.

And when Hat Kid entered the forest, he stuck around more.

He never got close to the child. He figured she wouldn’t be able to see him anyway so why bother? Instead, he floated at a distance, watching as the spunky kid collected time pieces. It was a joy to see her give Snatcher a run for his money, and the imprisoned prince was surprised to find how relieved he was when she defeated the specter time and time again.

But then she went back to the manor and Vanessa saw Snatcher in his shadow prince form, causing her to believe that her prince had escaped.

She quickly came to the moon prison and yelled at the imprisoned prince for leaving and tore his mask off, which he hadn’t had a chance to remove since he had barely returned to the prison before her. He thought she would have destroyed it if not for the threads that instantly looped around the mask and pulled it from her claws. The threads tossed the mask into the corner and fashioned red bars over it.

They both assumed this meant that the prison had confirmed that the prince was wrong to cling to the mask, but he did find himself relieved that the mask was unharmed. The threads around the imprisoned prince’s wrists and neck grew tighter and Vanessa spent longer in the prison, going so far as to form a bed of ice near him and sleep soundly for periods of time.

One time, when Vanessa was sleeping and the imprisoned prince stared down at the forest, he watched as Hat Kid found the etching in the oak tree. The child had… started crying? Intrigued, he listened.

When she started singing their lullaby his tears flowed soundlessly. He wanted to scream at Snatcher when he fled from their daughter. He wept, his chest tight, when darling Hattie and Snatcher reunited on top of the oak tree.

The imprisoned prince wanted so badly to go to them, to wrap his arms around them though they couldn’t see him. He wanted so badly to be there. He yanked at the threads and the movement startled Vanessa awake. She found him leaning away from the wall, his arms held back behind him. She cupped his chin in her hand and brushed claws across the stream of tears.

Such a coldness and yet it failed to numb the ache.

He kept his eyes on Hattie and Snatcher while Vanessa nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

“My prince, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realized you were this lonely without me,” she purred in a raspy voice.

He kept his eyes on the other part of his soul and on his precious daughter, trembling as Vanessa fawned over him. He didn’t look away, even after the two flew back down the tree and parted for the night. He remained, frozen, in chains.

Finally, Vanessa stopped coming as often when her territory was starting to defrost in her absence. Around the same time, Snatcher tried to create a large blue flame, not only forcing Vanessa to intensify the blizzard around her manor, but causing himself to nearly fall apart from the massive amounts of magic he failed to control.

The tethered prince saw the dwellers cluttering around the frozen hourglass and knew immediately they needed a thread.

It took a second to get the threads pinning him to the wall to loosen. It took a few more seconds to cross over to his mask and release it from the red bars. But as soon as he felt that desperate ache, begging the string to release, he found the threads parted. He placed the mask over his face, inhaling through his nose, and he jumped from his prison.

He landed by the dwellers, who all kept their lights tilted upward, waiting for a thread. The tethered prince felt his heart go out to them. He summoned a new thread and the dolls around him all gasped. He let the thread fly into the hands of one of the dwellers and they cheered, all immediately rushing towards their boss. The tethered prince followed them, letting himself inhale the fresh air.

When he reached the burning forest, Hattie was already there with Snatcher. The tethered prince felt joy, but it quickly flickered out when he saw the state the other part of his soul was in.

Golden cracks spread from Snatcher’s chest and into his right arm. His golden eyes were squeezed shut and he jerked around, no doubt from pain, as his purple body flickered and fragmented.

“We have to do something!” Hattie said to one of the nearest dwellers.

“Here’s the thread!” The one leading the group with the tethered prince called over the concerned mutterings of the others.

Hattie turned as the tethered prince flew forward. He plucked the red thread from the subconite with a thrust of magic. Using his hand motions to guide the thread, he quickly pushed the red thread into Snatcher’s chest and got to work.

The tethered prince stayed behind the eager group of dwellers, focusing on the pulsing of the forest magic that was overwhelming the fragment of the Prince’s soul. He felt eyes on him after a moment and looked up in fear that Vanessa had come, but all he found staring at him—or probably through him—was the beautiful blue gaze of his baby’s eyes. He looked at her. So close yet so far.

Snatcher jerked awake, gasping and the tethered prince and Hattie returned their focus to the large specter.

The tethered prince felt sweat collect on his brow as he pushed the thread where it needed to go, pushing the purple soul back together. He noticed Snatcher’s inquisitive hand go towards the thread in his chest and the tethered prince used the end of the thread to try and hold him back. Hattie, watching the thread intently, picked up on his meaning and hurried to hold back Snatcher’s talon. The tethered prince willed the thread to give a grateful brush against her fingers.

And she looked at him. And she nodded.

The tethered prince’s eyes widened in shock as his daughter looked directly at him and _nodded_. She could _see_ him. She could see _him_. _Hattie_ could see him.

He felt like crying but he still had work to do. He worked to finished embedding the thread into Snatcher, pulling him back together. Once the rest of the thread disappeared, melding into Snatcher’s soul and closing the cracks, the tethered prince finally relaxed.

Until his child thanked him.

He snapped his head up, staring at her and she stared back. Snatcher and the dwellers were trying to follow Hattie’s gaze but failed to land on the tethered prince. Even when she tried to point at him, the others gave her worried looks.

That was his cue to leave.

“No, wait!” Hattie called after him. The tethered prince’s heart pounded in his chest, but he floated onward, afraid of how he should go about this.

He had been alone for so long.

“Please,” she said. “Who are you?”

He felt warm hands clasp around his. He paused, angling back to look at the bright blue eyes considering him with concern. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Her hands were so gentle and small. So, so, warm. He wanted so badly to stay but surely he couldn’t, could he?

Vanessa’s words played through his mind. No one but the ice queen could love him.

“Why are you so cold?” Hattie’s fingers rubbed lightly against his, like she wanted him to warm up. Her eyes looked into the mask before darting to the tousled and unkempt dark blue hair that fanned out around the crescent obscuring his features. His chest tightened. Did she recognize him?

The thought terrified him. If she could tell who he was, how disappointed would she be? The fragment of her Papa who was chained to the moon couldn’t protect anyone like Snatcher, or do any of the things he used to do for his daughter.

He was sorry, so sorry he had to go, but he pulled back. His hand slipped from her fingers and he turned.

“Please, wait!” Hattie cried, reaching out to him, but he shook his head and jumped back into the moon.

The imprisoned prince fell back against the wall, his arms pinned with his throat as silent sobs wracked his chest. Oh, it hurt! How badly he wished to float right back and scoop up Hattie in his arms! But.

The threads tightened around him. She was better off without him, he knew. She had Snatcher and Snatcher had her. They had each other. They didn’t need the tethered prince who wasn’t strong enough to protect anyone, let alone himself, from Vanessa. No. It was better if he stayed chained up. Right? They didn’t want to be around a reminder of the past like him, right? He couldn’t blame them for it either.

He leaned back against the wall, feeling the weight of the mask on swollen lips.

Who would want to be around him?

**Author's Note:**

> MY BOY IS HERE AT LAST. Also, confession, I first heard this song and was like MOONJUMPER and then I listened to it on repeat while writing these past few weeks and I'll tell ya what that line, "nobody pines for the listener" gets me good, friends. It... it gets me good. 
> 
> Anyway, please let me know what you think! Thank you so much for reading!


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